


the mercy wheel

by redbelles



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Breaking the Wheel, Episode: s08e05 The Bells, F/M, Fix-It, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hey. Hey D&D., Meet Me In The Fucking Pit., Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-03-02 19:33:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18817558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redbelles/pseuds/redbelles
Summary: The red door shimmers in her dreams that night. A sea of grass, and a star blazing above the sea. Meereen. Crowds calling her mother, ash falling like snow in the bitter emptiness of a throne room, Missandei’s smile.Stormborn, Breaker of Chains, Breaker of Chains, Breaker—





	the mercy wheel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [soixantecroissants](https://archiveofourown.org/users/soixantecroissants/gifts), [carrythesky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/carrythesky/gifts), [reygrets](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reygrets/gifts).



“Is that all I am to you? Your Queen?”

She doesn’t mean to ask. The question slips out, unbidden, and she cannot call it back. Another mistake. Another failure. Her heart aches with them, and the pain curdles in her breast, a cold sick fire that sends her surging forward.

Jon stiffens, then sighs into her kiss, torn in two as he so often is.

 _I told him_ , she thinks. _I told him, and he didn’t—_

And now they are here, close as lovers. His beard rasps against her skin; he tastes of betrayal, like ash and empty promises. A fire gone cold and dead.

_Three fires must you light… three mounts must you ride… three treasons will you know…_

She can’t tell where one ends and the other begins, can’t tell if they ever meant anything at all or if they were just words on the wind. Fire flickers in the grate, dancing across her vision, searing bitter and ruthless through her chest. She pulls away, aching, aching.

“Alright then,” she starts, but Jon cuts her off.

“Daenerys,” he says, “Dany—” He swallows, wrestling with his pride. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Dany.”

“For what? Betraying me? Trusting me? Are you sorry you turned down the Spider’s offer now that you’ve seen which way my coin has landed? Tell me, Jon: what are you sorry for?”

Shadows gild his face, thicken the lines of his scars. He looks like one of the statues from Winterfell’s crypt. Stone, unyielding and merciless. It is her turn to stiffen, to wait for an answer. To wait for a wound.

“Your great-uncle once told me that a Targaryen alone in the world is a terrible thing.”

“I’m not alone.”

“Aren’t you? Tyrion, Varys. Rhaegal and Viserion and Missandei, all of us.” His voice—always quiet, always gruff—softens to a bare whisper. “Through death or betrayal, we’ve abandoned you to your grief.”

Salt burns on her skin, carving warm trails down her cheeks, spilling over her lips to dissolve on her tongue. She wants to argue with him, wants to shout. She wants to taste something other than heartbreak.

 _“I am not alone,”_ she says again, High Valyrian raw and bloody in her mouth. She knows it for a lie. The leather of the slave collar still smolders in the fire, burning away to embers. Her dearest friend, her staunchest supporter, the dragons who bore the names of her brothers. All of them gone.

All of them ghosts.

Outside, Drogon screams, a keening sound of rage and grief. The cry builds, loud and louder still, endless, until it eclipses the whole of the world. No crackling fire, no whispered words; only this. Only salt.

 _All men must die_ , Missandei says in memory.

 _But we are not men_ , Daenerys thinks now. _She was not supposed to die._

“She wanted to see the beaches,” she gasps out. “She wanted to go home, to be free, and she died in _chains—"_

She stops fighting and lets the tears fall freely, choking on her grief.

Drogon falls silent. She feels him take flight, her great swift son, but even a creature of magic cannot outrun this pain. Jon’s arms come around her, and she is too worn to do anything but lean into the shelter they offer. She cries until the leather of his jerkin is soaked through, until her eyes are red and her throat is raw, her skin itchy with salt.

The helpless fury remains, lessened now. Still a burden, but what is one more burden?

Jon holds her even after the tears subside. His beard rasps against her, breath warm and soft on her skin. He does not speak, does not try to counsel her; for now, that is enough.

 

…

 

The red door shimmers in her dreams that night. A sea of grass, and a star blazing above the sea. Meereen. Crowds calling her mother, ash falling like snow in the bitter emptiness of a throne room, Missandei’s smile. _Stormborn, Breaker of Chains, Breaker of Chains, Breaker—_

Dawn creeps in hushed and still.

Jon is warm at her side, eyes solemn as he watches her. The room smells faintly of ash and burned leather.

_Breaker of Chains._

“I am not my father,” she says into the quiet. “Not my brother.”

“I know,” he says, somber and sure. Then: “What would you have me do?”

 

…

 

Grey Worm brings news of Tyrion’s plan.

_Three treasons must you know._

Tyrion is blinded by family, blinded by hope and by fear. Jaime is not here to save Cersei. She saw him in the North, his heart in his eyes when he looked at Sansa’s sworn sword, wretched, sick with longing. The Kingslayer is here to kill a queen, but it matters little to her now.

She leaves Jon in command of the Northern armies, tells him to stand ready with Grey Worm and what remains of the Unsullied. He nods, silent, and places a gentle kiss on her brow before he goes. It is the softest touch she’s known in days. She carries it with as she makes her way to the cliffs, waiting for Drogon.

He flew the whole night through, but there is nothing of exhaustion in him when he lands before her, a growl rumbling low in his throat.

“Soon,” she soothes. “I promise.”

He launches into the sky, and it begins.

The Iron Fleet burns. Drogon has always been the fastest, the most powerful. The most vicious. He proves it now, dodging the ballista bolts, swooping low and deadly with a flame so fierce it throws heat like the noonday sun. The air blisters and ripples, and the Greyjoys scream and scream. The Drowned God has no answer for dragonfire.

They turn for King’s Landing.

 _“Rise,”_ she whispers to him, Missandei’s voice burning in the back of her mind. Drogon obeys. He takes her higher on effortless wings, high and higher still, further from the earth than she’s ever been, until they are hidden in the clouds. The sky around her is gray and cold. A strange dampness clings to her skin, but she hardly feels it. They are so close.

She closes her eyes and pictures the map. Just a few moments more, and then—

He plummets out of the clouds, hurtling towards the shit and blood reek of the city and the looming shadow of the Red Keep. Distant screaming greets them, frightened peasants and hardened soldiers alike quailing at the sight of them.

 _Aegon and Balerion come again_ , she imagines them thinking. _As mad as her father, come to kill us, come to burn us—_

She holds tight to Missandei’s voice, to Jon’s quiet belief, to the dream of all she’s done, all she will ever do.

Drogon’s flame sears through the stone of the keep, melting it like snow. Plumes of smoke billow up from the rubble only to shred and vanish on the wind. One wingbeat, two, and it clears enough to see.

Cersei Lannister stands alone in a great hall, horror painted across her face as vivid as blood, her gaze torn between her enemy and the twisted ruin of iron before her.

“What—” she gasps, and oh, _oh_ , how Daenerys hates her voice. “What have you done?”

She does not answer. There are footsteps racing toward the hall, someone shouting Cersei’s name. The Kingslayer, no doubt. She urges Drogon forward, guiding him into the throne room, unbothered by ruin, heedless of the fire. Fire cannot kill a dragon.

“If you have any last words,” she says, cold and precise as she can, “now is the time.”

The Lannister queen is silent, hands curling into fists. One heartbeat. The shouts are closer now, hoarse, desperate. Two.

“Jaime—”

Three.

Missandei speaks the word with her. High Valyrian rolls like water off her tongue, like blood, and the roar of Drogon’s flame swallows up Cersei Lannister and her last words, burning, burning, burning. When it ends, there is only silence. When it ends, there is only Dany, grieving.

 _Valar dohaeris_ , says memory. _Breaker of Chains_ , it says.

Jaime Lannister collapses to his knees before the ash and bone of his sister, sword falling from his good hand to clatter weakly on the stone.

“Kingslayer,” she says. “Jaime Lannister.”

He looks up at her, facing down her dragon as he did once before. No spear now, no armor. His eyes are curiously empty.

“Go,” she says. The command echoes in the wreck of the throne room. “Tell them to ring the bells. Tell them to open the gates.”

 

…

 

She thinks of Sansa, as cold and fierce and free as the North itself. She thinks of her brother, starving, desperate for justice. Desperate for a home. She thinks of Meereen, Astapor, Yunkai, of mothers and sons and fear.

Jon, kissing her hand and swearing to her, kissing her mouth and swearing again. Tyrion, willing to betray everything for peace. Beaches she’s never seen, friends she’s lost forever, Drogo and dragon eggs and all the wounds that made her. She thinks of Mirri Maz Duur, triumph ugly on her face as she said only death could pay for life.

 _Please_ , she thinks, like a plea, like a prayer. _Let it be enough._

“I am Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen,” she says, letting her voice drift out across the crowd.

The city waits, peasants and lords and soldiers and whores alike all staring up at the crownless figure standing before the walls of the Red Keep. Drogon circles silent above her, a shadow and a promise.

“Mother of Dragons. Breaker of Chains.” She swallows down salt, feels her heart swell with grief and love and so much hope. “And this I swear: you are free.”

**Author's Note:**

> dany deserved better. emilia deserved better. _we all deserved better._
> 
> title from "the mercy wheel" by a.a. bondy
> 
> [rebloggable](https://redbelles.tumblr.com/post/184861318928/the-mercy-wheel) on tumblr; feel free to come scream/cry with me about this absolute disaster of a show


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